The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source, vendor-agnostic standard created by Anthropic in November 2024.
MCP serves as a universal connector between large language models (LLMs) and external data sources or tools.
It aims to standardize how LLMs request, retrieve, and manipulate external data using a uniform protocol.
MCP employs a client-server model with MCP Hosts, MCP Clients, and MCP Servers as its core components.
The workflow involves the user asking AI to fetch data, the host spinning up an MCP client, and the client making a standardized JSON‑RPC call to the MCP server.
MCP adoption is growing, with various organizations leveraging it for tool integrations and workflows.
Use cases include IDE assistants pulling live code context from GitHub and enterprise agents querying internal databases.
Pros of MCP include unified integrations, vendor-agnosticism, scalability, and security-by-design.
Challenges include security vulnerabilities, governance gaps, and potential market incentives issues.
Future outlook for MCP includes broader adoption, enhanced security layers, and advanced tooling.
MCP aims to enable context-aware agentic AI by standardizing interactions between LLMs and external tools.
Security, governance, and ethical design are crucial for the safe scaling of MCP in intelligent applications.
MCP could play a key role in the future of applications bridging human intent and digital systems.